LIKE many other pro-Europeans, Gary Arthurs (Letters, June 12) threatens us with the loss of manufacturing jobs should we fail to join the euro. This scaremongering tactic is becoming threadbare.

Of all the goods manufactured in this country, including trade in its financial sector, 20 per cent is exported and the amount of them traded with our European partners varies between 40 and 60 per cent, depending on which report you refer to.

I think it is at the lower end of this band and because the EU exports more to the UK than we do to them, it is they who would prefer us to integrate more.

There are questions, however, that the pro-Europeans avoid like the plague.

Such as, how can a common currency succeed when each nation has different levels of inflation, taxation, state pensions and social security benefits and different employment laws, etc.?

Because interest rates are set in Brussels the only method of controlling inflation is by increasing taxes. I say 'increasing' because taxes are never reduced.

Our main European partners all have higher taxation levels than the UK and higher levels of unemployment.

So we should all be aware of the pitfalls of greater integration. As Mr Arthurs said, Britain is a powerful, prosperous and great trading nation. It has been for centuries and has traded throughout the world very successfully during this time and will no doubt continue to do so.

GORDON ECCLES, North Bank Avenue, Blackburn.